have a huge problem. Everything else is good except for the Atmel Microcontroller ATMega168v-10pu. Can i order another pre-programmed or do I need to buy one somewhere and figure out the programming? please advise asap. When the chip is in it draws the 9VDC down to 3.5VDC.Seems like the chip has a short in a sector as it causes the 5vdc to drop to below 1vdc and will not make a beep or any voltage past the atmel chip

This is the ATMega128 chip in the ice tube clock kit I just received. All worked fine until this chip was inserted, then severe voltage drops and no voltage boost at all past it. Concluding it is most likely a bad IC, possibly a short or esd problem. I will pay for a New chip if need be but I am positive this is the problem.

There are no assembly issues and considering it is at my office it will not be available until tomorrow. This is why I sent email originally asking to purchase a new chip as I'm sure after troubleshooting with 3 electrical engineers other than myself that this is the problem. I was mistaken in the last post as it is an ATMega168 chip. I can send pictures tomorrow but as considering this is a gift for a person leaving on the 17th of this month I would prefer to buy a New chip if it will be quicker.

If it is a defective chip we will replace it. But it is highly unlikely that a chip would cause the problems you report. We program these chips with the firmware prior to shipment. If the chip had some internal short that cause severe voltage drops, we would have certainly detected it when we tried to program it.

The short may have been caused by esd at some point in the packing/shipping/assembly process as this is the only thing wrong. I would prefer to just purchase a New chip or two and get it finished ASAP. If you can sell a chip or two that would be ideal. I can send this one back so you can try to troubleshoot it if you want. Please advise as I was going to buy another kit soon but I want this one to work first. Thank you

I'll check into the availability of pre-programmed chips. In the mean-time, if you have access to an un-programmed Atmega 168 or 328, you can plug it in and see if the same voltage drops occur. Obviously there will be no startup beep or boost voltage without the firmware, but it would be the fastest way to test the ESD theory.